Student Peace Alliance: Starting a New Student Group

Extracurricular involvement is a key aspect of any average college student's life. You find many students involved with Greek life, residence hall communities, or even starting a brand new student group on-campus. Now, the average college student looks for opportunities that already exists; however, the optimistic and futuristic student will challenge oneself to create something new and impactful on a college campus. This is where my personal story begins with the Student Peace Alliance.

The Student Peace Alliance is a free program of the Peace Alliance. As a student chapter of the Peace Alliance, the Student Peace Alliance works to advocate for peace through legislative advocacy involving phone banking, letter writing, and campus programming in order to show government representatives that students and residents alike care about the passage of a bill such as the Youth Promise Act in Congress. In April 2014, I attended a call-out meeting sponsored by the Political & Civic Engagement program here at Indiana University Bloomington that talked about how national and community conflicts can be resolved through restorative, peaceful ways. One proposal pitched by the recruiters who came to the call-out from the Peace Alliance was the creation of a Student Peace Alliance chapter here on-campus. Personally, I was super excited about the mission of the Peace Alliance that I jumped on board then and there leading to the creation of IU's Student Peace Alliance chapter at the end of the Fall 2014 semester.

Here are 3 major tips for those interested in starting a new student group at IU:

Understand what your new student group will do on-campus to improve the entire college setting

On a side note, the Student Peace Alliance is a new student group on-campus; however, our national branch (The Peace Alliance) has a decade of expertise and is assisting us in developing our presence at IU-Bloomington. If you would like to join a student group that advocates for peace and awareness through legislative advocacy and current events, this is the extracurricular niche for you!